Recovery of a Historically Persecuted Population of Nesting Golden Eagles in the Trans-Pecos Region of West Texas, USA

Persecution of avian predators, including Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), is a global phenomenon; for example, persecution of resident Golden Eagles in Scotland has reduced adult survival and distribution (Whitfield et al. 2004).In his landmark treatise on Golden Eagles in west Texas and southeast New Mexico, USA, Spofford (1964) had "every reason to believe that something like 20,000 eagles were shot in the southwest in the last 20 years."Although many Golden Eagles historically killed in west Texas were likely wintering northern migrants (Boeker and Ray 1971, Katzner et al. 2020), open animosity toward eagles was still common in the 1970s when a dramatically reduced breeding population abundance was attributed to ongoing indiscriminate shooting, trapping, and poisoning (J.Lockhart unpubl.data).Herein, we compare two survey efforts conducted 36 yr apart that suggest substantial recovery of this historically persecuted population of nesting Golden Eagles in the Trans-Pecos region.The Trans-Pecos is an 81,530-km 2 area of the state of Texas, USA, located between the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers.The western half of the Trans-Pecos is 48,300 km 2 , encompassing Brewster, Presidio, Jeff Davis, Hudspeth, and El Paso Counties and the southwestern corner of Culberson County (Fig. 1), and including the most rugged and remote terrain in Texas.Paleogenic volcanism and a series of major faults (Ewing 2016) created an extensive network of